''The Empire of Light'' (French: ''L'Empire des lumières'') is the title of a succession of paintings by

René Magritte René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and bound ...

.Kantrowitz, Jonathan (25 November 2017),
René Magritte: The Fifth Season
'. Art History News. (accessed 19 December 2020) They depict the paradoxical image of a nocturnal landscape beneath a sunlit sky. He explored the theme in 27 paintings (17 oil paintings and 10

gouaches Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache ...

) from the 1940s to the 1960s.Peyser, Marijke. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam:
A dream collection - Surrealism in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
' (accessed 19 December 2020)Zivkovic, Alex (2018),
"'It's Like Being in the Picture': The Dominion of Light at SFMOMA"
'. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (accessed 19 December 2020) The paintings were not planned as a formal series. They have never all been exhibited together and are rarely exhibited in smaller groups. The original French title, ''L'Empire des Lumieres'' is sometimes translated as singular, ''The Empire of Light'',Noël, Bernard (1977), ''Magritte''. Crown Publishers, Inc. New York. 96 pp. Rubin, William S. (1968) ''Dada and Surrealist Art''. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York. 525 pp.and sometimes as plural ''The Empire of Lights''.Hammacher, A. M. (1973) ''Magritte''. The Library of Great Painters. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York, 167 pp. Torczyner, Harry (1977) ''Magritte: Ideas and Images''. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York, 277 pp. Other translations include ''The Dominion of Light'': making the distinction: "an empire exists in relation to a ruler, a dominion does not necessarily require this.”

Precursors, influences, and origins

One source states the artist was inspired by the works of John Atkinson Grimshaw, an English painter from the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwa ...

, who had delighted in his time to paint urban views at sunset. More perceptively, other sources identify the nocturnal paintings by the Belgian

symbolist Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realis ...

William Degouve de Nuncques (1867 – 1935) as an influence on Magritte's series, specifically his painting ''The Blind House''.Cassou, Jean (1984) ''The Concise Encyclopaedia of Symbolism''. Chartwell Books, Inc. Secaucus, New Jersey. 292 pp. The art historian and former director of the

Kröller-Müller Museum The Kröller-Müller Museum () is a national art museum and sculpture garden, located in the Hoge Veluwe National Park in Otterlo in the Netherlands. The museum, founded by art collector Helene Kröller-Müller within the extensive grounds of ...

in the Netherlands, A. M . Hammacher also observed that Magritte was "highly interested" in the landscapes of the great German romantic painter

Caspar David Friedrich Caspar David Friedrich (5 September 1774 – 7 May 1840) was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landsca ...

William Rubin William Stanley Rubin (August 11, 1927January 22, 2006) was an American art scholar, a distinguished curator, critic, collector, art historian and teacher of modern art. From 1968 to 1988, Rubin was a curator at The Museum of Modern Art located ...

made comparisons between some of

Max Ernst Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German (naturalised American in 1948 and French in 1958) painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealis ...

's frottage paintings, specifically ''Forest'' 1927), oil on canvas 114 x 146 cm. in Joseph Slifka collection, New York at that time commenting of Ernst's painting "the night landscape enigmatically includes a bright daylight sky (Magritte was to explore this same conjunction later in ''The Empire of Light II'')." Comparisons with Salvador Dali's gouache ''Night and Day Clothes'' (1936) and Max Ernst's ''Day and Night'' (1941–42) in the

Menil Collection The Menil Collection, located in Houston, Texas, refers either to a museum that houses the art collection of founders John de Menil and Dominique de Menil, or to the collection itself of approximately 17,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawing ...

are also intriguing. An early example of Magritte playing with the idea of the simultaneous appearance of night and day is a gouache painted in 1939 that is now in the

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Municipal Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen () is an art museum in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The name of the museum is derived from the two most important collectors of Frans Jacob Otto Boijmans and Daniël George van Beuningen. It is located ...

, Rotterdam. In this gouache, the horizon of a twilight sky is sharply lit by a sunset casting a group of trees and houses in the foreground in a black silhouette which is filled with stars and a crescent moon. A book on Magritte published in 1973 identifies the gouache as ''La Bonne Aventure'' (''Good Fortune''), however the website of the

gives the title as ''Le poison'' (''The Poison'') and states it is the first in the series ''The Empire of Light''.

The series

Although Magritte had already completed a few versions by 1953, a retrospective at the 1954

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

included a 1954 version (now in the

Peggy Guggenheim Collection The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is an art museum on the Grand Canal in the Dorsoduro ''sestiere'' of Venice, Italy. It is one of the most visited attractions in Venice. The collection is housed in the , an 18th-century palace, which was the home ...

) that attracted several collectors with expectations of buying the painting. Magritte ended up producing multiple large, high quality versions that year to satisfy the collectors, and he continued to occasionally explore the theme in paintings for the rest of his life. The motif was included in the designs for a series of murals in the main gaming room at the Municipal Casino at Knokke-Le Zoute in Belgium. Titled ''The Enchanted Domain'', Magritte produced a set of eight easel sized paintings reprising and intergrading numerous themes that had appeared in his previous work. His paintings were then copied to the walls on a 1:6 scale, in a 360-degree panorama (236 ft., 71.93 m. circumference), under his supervision and completed in 1953. Another painting from 1958, in which Magritte switched the lighting, with a sunlit landscape under a night sky is ''Le salon de Dieu'' (''God's Drawing Room''), oil on canvas, 43 x 59 cm., (in the private collection of Arnold Weissberger, New York in 1977). Magritte discussed the painting in an undated letter to

Suzi Gablik Suzi Gablik (September 26, 1934 – May 7, 2022) was an American visual artist, author, art critic, and professor of art history and art criticism. She lived in Blacksburg, Virginia. Early life and education Gablik was born in New York City on ...

stating: "I'd like to tell you I've brought off a very difficult picture, but which is probably too difficult to be successful? It involves a painting of a daylit landscape with a nocturnal sky (stars and crescent moon). I've painted and repainted this picture and I'm at the disenchanted stage, It's a total failure! A friend found as title ''Le salon de Dieu'' (''God's Drawing Room''): I hesitated a long time in adopting it; a title such as ''Le bal masqué'' (''The Masked Ball'') seemed preferable to me for many reasons, the main one being the total ban on saying anything at all about God. But to see it and reproduce it in paint is possible only if one is a God. While waiting to become one, I'm abandoning the project."

Quotes from the artist and André Breton

Magritte commented on the paintings in a televised interview in 1956, about the time he received his Guggenheim Prize.

For me, the conception of a painting is an idea of one thing or several things that can become visible through my painting. It is understood that all ideas are not conceptions for pictures. Obviously, an idea must be sufficiently stimulating for me to undertake to paint faithfully the thing or things I have ideated. The conception of a picture, that is, the idea, is not visible in the picture: an idea cannot be seen with the eyes. What is represented in a picture is what is visible to the eyes, it is the thing or things that must have been ideated. Thus, what are represented in the picture ''The Empire of Light'' are the things I ideated, i.e. a nighttime landscape and a sky such as we see during the day. The landscape evokes night and the sky evokes day. I call this power: poetry. If I believe this evocation has such poetic power, it is because among other reasons, I have always felt the greatest interest in night and in day, yet without ever having preferred one or the other. This great personal interest in night and day is a feeling of admiration and astonishment."

In 1964,

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Secon ...

and Dominique de Menil organized an exhibition of Magritte's work in

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 ...

, Texas. The Belgian surrealist attended the exhibit, replete in an incongruous cowboy hat and boots.

André Breton André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first '' Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') ...

wrote the introduction for the exhibition catalogue and commented on the Empire of Light'' paintings. Breton, André (1964), ''The Breadth of Rene Magitte'', 5-7 pp. In Magritte. The Art Department of the University of St. Thomas, Houston Texas. 36 pp. ranslated by W. G. Ryan/ref>

"Rene Magritte's work and thought could not fail to come out at the opposite pole from the zone of facility - and of capitulation - that goes by the name of "
chiaroscuro Chiaroscuro ( , ; ), in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achi ...
." To him, inevitably, fell the task of separating the "subtle" from the "dense", without which effort no transmutation is possible. To attack this problem called for all his audacity - to extract simultaneously what is light from the shadow and what is shadow from the light (''L'Empire des Lumieres''). In this work the violence done to accepted ideas and conventions is such (I - Breton - have this from Magritte) that most of those who go by quickly think they saw the stars in the daytime sky."

A partial list of paintings related to ''The Empire of Light''

* ''Good Fortune'' or ''The Poison'' (1939), gouache, 33.6 x 40.6 cm.,

, Rotterdam. * ''The Empire of Light'' (1948), 100 x 80 cm., private collection, Brussels, Belgium* * ''The Empire of Light II'' (1950), 79 x 99 cm.

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...

, New York, New York (Gift of the Menils) * ''The Empire of Light III'' (1951), 78.7 x 66 cm., William Alexander, New York, New York* * ''The Empire of Light'' (1953), 37 x 45 cm. Arnold Weissberger, New York, New York* * ''The Empire of Light'' (1954), 195.4 x 131.2 cm.,

, Venice, Italy * ''The Empire of Light VIII'' (1954), 129.9 x 94.6 cm., The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas * ''The Empire of Light'' (1954), 146 x 114 cm.,

Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (french: Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, nl, Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België) are a group of art museums in Brussels, Belgium. They include six museums: the Oldmasters Mus ...

, Brussels, Belgium * ''The Empire of Light'' (1958), 49.5 x 39.5 cm., New York, New York* * ''God's Drawing Room'' (1958), 43 x 59 cm., Arnold Weissberger, New York* * ''The Empire of Light'' (1961), 114 x 146 cm., private collection, Brussels, Belgium* * ''The Empire of Light'' (no date), private collection, Brussels, Belgium* * ''The Empire of Light'' (1967, unfinished), 45 x 50 cm.,

Magritte Museum The Magritte Museum (french: Musée Magritte, nl, Magritte Museum) is an art museum in central Brussels, Belgium, dedicated to the work of the Belgian surrealist artist, René Magritte. It is one of the constituent museums of the Royal Museum ...

, Brussels, Belgium All works are oil on canvas unless noted otherwise. An asterisk (*) indicates the collection based on a 1977 publication and may not reflect the current collection.

Legacy, influences, and trivia

The paintings inspired a scene in the 1973 horror film ''

The Exorcist ''The Exorcist'' is a 1973 American supernatural horror film directed by William Friedkin and written for the screen by William Peter Blatty, based on his 1971 The Exorcist (novel), novel of the same name. It stars Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, ...

'', which was used on the film's posters and home video releases, in which the character

Father Merrin A father is the male parent of a child. Besides the paternal bonds of a father to his children, the father may have a parental, legal, and social relationship with the child that carries with it certain rights and obligations. An adoptive fath ...

stands in front of the MacNeil family's house. It also inspired the artwork for the cover of

Jackson Browne Clyde Jackson Browne (born October 9, 1948) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and political activist who has sold over 18 million albums in the United States. Emerging as a precocious teenage songwriter in mid-1960s Los Angeles, he h ...

's 1974 album ''

Late for the Sky ''Late for the Sky'' is the third studio album by American singer–songwriter Jackson Browne, released by Asylum Records on September 13, 1974. It peaked at number 14 on ''Billboards Pop Albums chart. In 2020, the album was deemed "cul ...

''.

Gallery of comparative paintings

File:John Atkinson Grimshaw - Boar Lane, Leeds.jpg, John Atkinson Grimshaw, ''Boar Lane'',

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popul ...

, 1880s File:Caspar David Friedrich - Abtei im Eichwald - Google Art Project.jpg, Caspar David Friedrich, ''Abbey in the Oakwood'' (1809-10), oil on canvas, 171 x 110.4 cm., Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin File:Caspar David Friedrich - Ruinen in der Abenddämmerung (ca 1831).jpg, Caspar David Friedrich, ''Church ruin in the forest'' (c. 1831), oil on canvas, 70.5 x 49.7 cm., Neue Pinakothek, Munich File:1892 Degouve de Nuncques Het blinde huis anagoria.JPG, William Degouve de Nuncques, ''The Blind House'' (1892), oil on canvas, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo File:The Canal (1894), oil on canvas, 42,4 x 122,5 cm., Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo.jpg, William Degouve de Nuncques, ''The Canal'' (1894), oil on canvas, 42,4 x 122,5 cm., Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo

References

External links

Guggenheim website catalog entry

Museum of Modern Art website catalog entry

Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium website catalog entryAn interactive soundscape (MusIcon) of the painting.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Empire of Lights Paintings by René Magritte 1953 paintings 1954 paintings Peggy Guggenheim Collection